A new groundbreaking theory on consciousness proposes that qualia — for instance, the scent of a rose — reside in quantum fields. Federico Faggin is one of the greatest luminaries of high technology alive today. A physicist by education, he is the inventor of the microprocessor and the MOS silicon gate technology, both of which underlie the modern world’s entire information technology. With the knowledge and experience of a lifetime in cutting-edge fields, Federico now turns his attention to consciousness and the nature of reality, sharing with us his profound insights on the classical and quantum worlds, artificial intelligence, life and the human mind. In this discussion, he elaborates on an idealist model of reality, produced after years of careful thought and direct experience, according to which nature’s most fundamental level is that of consciousness as a quantum phenomenon, while the classical physical world consists merely of evocative symbols of a deeper reality.

Physicist Federico Faggin is the inventor of both the microprocessor and silicon gate technology, and probably the world’s most well rounded idealist alive. This interview is an open, free-ranging but very accessible conversation with Mr. Faggin.

Consciousness is the inner reality of the world, governed by the laws of coherent quantum systems, while matter is but an expression of the meaning inherent in this inner reality. The classical world of matter conforms to the statistical properties of a primordial quantum ‘language’ spontaneously used by the inner quantum reality to express itself. These are the insights of physicist—and inventor of the microprocessor—Federico Faggin in this captivating essay.

Science fiction and certain voices in academia have manufactured cultural plausibility for the notion that we should, one day, be able to build a conscious computer. But is this idea even coherent to begin with? Who best to ask but the creator of the microprocessor and artificial intelligence pioneer, Federico Faggin.